Tascam M1600
A 16-channel, 8-buss recording console pitched at the project studio that had just gone digital - and priced accordingly.
Overview
Tascam's own distributor copy for the M1600 series claimed that pairing the console with a DA-38 gave you "professional digital recording for less than the cost of 10 days recording in a half way decent London studio." That's marketing, not a measured verdict. It does tell you who the M1600 was built for: the home or project operator who'd just bought a modular digital multitrack and needed a real desk to feed it. According to distributor documentation, the console was "designed for today's digital multitracks," and the feature set backs that up.
Start with the channel count. The M1600 carries 16 channels with 16 balanced line inputs, but only 8 high-performance mic preamps, expandable to 16, per the same documentation. So this is a desk built to take a lot of line-level sources from a digital recorder and a rack of outboard, with a modest set of mic preamps for the times you actually point a microphone at something. Buyers who assumed "16 channels" meant "16 mic pres" were disappointed. Buyers who understood they were getting a line-heavy mixdown and tracking platform got what the brochure promised.
The EQ is a 3-band design with a sweepable mid. The distributor materials describe it as "3 band EQ with mid sweep," and Sound-on-Sound (December 1996, p.81) characterized the channel EQ as full-frequency with a sweepable, assignable mid. Fixed-frequency mids were the usual compromise on budget consoles of the period, and Tascam didn't take it here.
Routing is where the M1600 earns its "8-buss" description. There's one stereo and four mono AUX sends, with three-way selectable AUX control. The pre/post switching lets you decide per send whether a feed follows the fader. Every channel gets mute and insert points, so you can patch a compressor or gate into any source without repatching the whole desk. Solo is stereo, in-place. Main and monitor outputs are balanced TRS.
The footprint decides who can actually own one. The M1600/16 measures 28.1 inches wide and the M1600/24 stretches to 37.1 inches. Both are 23 inches deep and 7.5 inches tall, and that height is with the optional meter bridge fitted, per the distributor listing. A 23-inch depth is a serious desk footprint.
Two variants were offered. The M1600/16 carried a manufacturer's list price of $1,699.00 and the M1600/24 listed at $2,199.00, according to distributor documentation. Mix (1997, p.211) built an entire advertisement around the skepticism that a "quality recording console" could exist for that kind of money. The copy lists "No such thing as a quality recording console for [that price]" among the objections it sets out to answer.
Working engineers took to it. Mix (1997, p.183) ran a testimonial from Charles Pell, chief engineer at Larson Sound, describing a process of looking, listening, and comparing before trying an M1600 - and then buying six of them for the facility's editing rooms. One engineer's purchasing decision isn't a lab measurement, but six consoles in one install is a real commitment.
The criticisms were specific rather than fatal. Sound-on-Sound (April 1997, p.107) noted the absence of a split equalisation section, meaning the ability to apply separate EQ to the main channel and the monitor section independently. That made headphone balances less clear when monitoring. The same review called it a relatively minor gripe, observing that the reviewer tended to send the main mix to headphones during vocal sessions anyway. The same piece judged the sound quality good and singled out the extra features for multiple track-laying as making the M1600 a solid choice for engineers recording live bands as well as sequencer-based work. It also flagged the desk as especially suited to interfacing with ADATs and DA88/38s, which fits the 8-buss layout and the D-sub connectivity described in Tascam's own materials.
Tascam's distributor copy notes the M1600 connects to DA-38 and D-88 digital recorders with just four D-sub connector leads. That leaves all the other XLR and balanced jack inputs free for additional sources at recording and mixdown. Four cables to a digital multitrack is a tidy setup.
The available materials have no production run information, no service history and no market data. What they do show is the design brief: a line-rich, 8-buss, mid-sweep-EQ console built to sit between a rack of sources and a modular digital recorder, sold at a price that made engineers suspicious and, in at least one facility's case, convinced.
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